Baby, It’s Dark Outside
Seen. Heard. Understood.
We are heading into the darkest part of the year.
Today, December 14, in Central Alberta, the sun rose at 8:38 and set at 4:22. That’s a short day! Depending on your workday, you may not experience any daylight at all! Our bodies won’t be getting a lot of the “feel good” hormones that we need to stay emotionally resilient.
We are heading into a holiday season that may be a minefield of memories and hopes, dreams, expectations, loss and loneliness.
Uncertainty is still holding on as the Omicron variant causes many of us to wonder and dread.
In North America, we have typically scheduled many celebrations for this time of the year; the social contact we had with our family, friends and neighbours along with music, dance and tradition have a similar impact on our biology as light. Connection is medicine for our soul, our body, and our heart.
I feel comforted and calm as I visualize a montage of the many times I have sang Silent Night with a choir of friends by the light of the candles we all held. In those powerful moments, we were connected and experienced light that was as powerful as the July sunlight; a light that was heart-felt and deep Those memories are warm and inspire resilience. I feel like there’s nothing I cannot do when I feel that deeply connected to myself and others. I’m thankful for them and draw on the memories in the darkness of this December when “normal” hasn’t been in anyone’s grasp for months. Years.
Haha! What IS “normal”?
I think we are longing for familiar…safe.
What do we do when uncertainty continues to shape our collective and individual experiences? What do we do when we cannot gather, again, as we have in the past?
How can we create powerful connective experiences, for ourselves and each other in this season?
Let’s consider connection.
Some of us have experienced deep loneliness in the experience of a large group, a workplace, leadership or a marriage. Why?
Connection is the ingredient we are all hungry for, especially in the deep, dark, second Covid Christmas of our lives.
We misunderstood connection before Covid, and many of us are misunderstanding it today. Connection is the gift of feeling and helping someone else feel SEEN, HEARD and UNDERSTOOD.
It doesn’t take sunlight and it doesn’t take candles. It takes two people who each share and receive. The story of Christmas is about the God connecting with humanity so that we would know and understand that we are seen, heard and understood.
What are the essential ingredients for connection?
Who do you trust?
Who do you want to grow trust with?
Can you reach out and share yourself with them?
Can you come to that relationship without an expectation, but with a desire to share, learn, maybe just enough to grow the relationship just a little bit more?
What act of kindness would enlarge your soul by giving it and watching another human experience feeling cared for?
If you are in the habit of giving (because some of us are hard-wired to give without counting the cost) maybe your act of feeling SEEN, HEARD and UNDERSTOOD, is to ask for a reprieve from your normal role with even one trusted person this season. Maybe for you it is about giving yourself permission to receive this year?
The hard reality is that we bring an important ingredient to the need for connection… ourselves. I would like you to invite you to ask yourself what it would take for you to feel SEEN, HEARD and UNDERSTOOD by yourself in the darkest weeks ahead.
What do you need? What will give you the tiny spark you need to see through the dark? It doesn’t take a lot of light to dispel the inky cloak of dark that a lot of us are carrying today… it just gets to be YOUR personalized spark.
Do you need to paint? Do you need to play an instrument, dance to your favorite music or sing at the top of your lungs as you drive to work? Do you need to see your childhood friend, child, or grandchild on a video chat?
In one of the darkest times of my life, I knew I needed human contact, so I went for a pedicure…it’s a great story. Ask me someday……
I would invite you to ignite the spark of what it is you need in the weeks ahead. You are resourceful and creative!
What do you need?
How will you create the spark you need to see through the dark?